


Glitched

by ultharkitty



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:25:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultharkitty/pseuds/ultharkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several years after the events of B.O.T, and Onslaught and Vortex have developed a complicated relationship far more violent than the one they had back on Cybertron. Blast Off is called in to deal with the aftermath.</p><p>Contains: implied consensual BDSM/torture, co-dependent relationship(s). Potential trigger – this is not particularly explicit, but it does deal with pernicious verbal abuse/negative reinforcement.</p><p>Massive thanks to  for help with this one :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glitched

The lock to his recharge chamber pinged. Blast Off glanced up, already reaching for his pistol. But it was only Onslaught, leaning heavily against the jamb, scuffed and dirty and inscrutable.

"Here," Onslaught said. "Deal with this." He dropped a key card on the floor and left, his footfalls ringing through the empty corridors of Combaticon HQ.

Blast Off glared at the card. A sickly anticipation swilled through his tanks, and he heaved himself off the berth. He didn't want to 'deal with this'. Not again. He wasn't an engineer, and he certainly wasn't a medic.

But he _was_ circumspect. He was quiet and uncomplaining and did his job.

Blast Off crouched to pick up the key card, and wondered when in the pit _this_ had become a part of his job.

* * *

Everything hurt.

That, in itself, was fine. Everything could hurt as much as it liked. He _welcomed_ the hurt. But the light, that was irritating. Harsh in the still air, the sun was a white circle in the centre of the skylight, burrowing deep into his peripheral vision. His visor didn’t help.

The door opened and he flinched. One of his team, it was all the bond told him. Not Swindle, _please_ not Swindle…. It couldn’t be Onslaught: he wouldn’t come back, wouldn’t acknowledge what had been done until it needed to be done again.

A gruff sigh, a shuffle of feet. “You bring this all on yourself.”

Vortex sighed. Blast Off. Of course. Who else could it be? He tried to respond, an unaccountable thankfulness congealing in his ragged sensor net, but he couldn’t quite raise the charge to activate his vocaliser.

* * *

Vortex was a mess.

Sprawled on his side over Onslaught’s desk, the jagged stumps of his rotors discharged weak sparks into the air. Everywhere was energon, hydraulic fluid and oil, all swirled together and studded with shards of metal. Small sections of wire and fragments of circuitry crunched beneath Blast Off’s feet.

Whatever Onslaught had done, it hadn’t been quick.

“I mean it,” Blast Off said. _I’d rather be anywhere else but here_. “This is all your fault. You can see that, can’t you?”

Vortex made a soft sound, air rasping against his mask. “Uhuh.” It could have been agreement, it could just have been another sigh.

“Can you hear me?”

The engine revved, a brief increase accompanied by a spike of satiation-peace-pain from Vortex’ tattered energy field. Nothing through the gestalt bond, though, perhaps he was too weak to access it. Good.

Blast Off fought the urge to step back. “Expressive,” he commented. “Let’s get you to repair bay?” He wasn’t sure why he bothered asking. It wasn’t as though Vortex could do anything about it. Under normal circumstances Vortex took any chance he could to touch Blast Off. Never said please, never asked if it was all right, or stopped when he learned that it wasn’t. Why should Blast Off accord him the courtesy now?

“I shouldn’t be here,” Blast Off muttered. “I should send in the drones, they can clean you up.”

The pulse of pure need that rushed through Vortex’ EM field was a shock. As was Blast Off’s reactionary surge of gratification.

“Frag you,” Blast Off snarled, as angry with himself for his response as he was with Vortex for prompting it. “Don’t do that… Never do that.”

The ‘copter’s optics flickered, a febrile glow that hardly penetrated his visor. His energy field settled a little, but continued to undulate, as though Vortex was trying to touch him the only way he could.

Blast Off was grateful for his mask. It hid the disgusted curl of his lip as he slid his arms around Vortex and hauled him off the desk.

The walk to repair bay was long - made longer by the need to check for Brawl and Swindle, pausing at each junction, assessing each corridor and open space. This wasn’t something he wanted them seeing.

Onslaught had made himself scarce. He’d emerge, eventually, when Vortex was in full working order again.

“You need a proper medic,” Blast Off said. He dragged Vortex into the hangar and laid him on a berth. On his back. Let the fragger suffer.

It bothered him a little that he thought that way. What kind of person had he become?

More to the point, what kind of person had Vortex turned him into?

Blast Off shoved Vortex’ arm aside, and rammed a forced-recharge jack into the port on his waist. It wasn’t as though he could recharge automatically, not in that state.

He locked the doors, and stood with his back against them. His hands were coated in oil, his feet were wet, and dripped steadily onto the floor. There’d be a trail from Onslaught’s office to repair bay. Nothing he could do about that – the maintenance drones would deal with it. He had to cope with Vortex.

This wasn’t like the Nemesis; there were no Constructicons to help, just the med-drones, sitting curled on their long legs, dormant until needed. Not that they could have taken this to Hook. Couldn’t take it to anyone.

Vortex was looking at him.

“Frag you,” Blast Off spat. “You’re glitched. What did you make him do this time? No, I don’t want to know. You’re disgusting.” He stopped. Too much venom; it hurt to speak.

No response. Was Vortex even online? Blast Off swore and marched over to the berth.

“Answer me,” Blast Off said, and the words felt jagged. “What the frag is wrong with you?”

A faint crackle of static, sounded like, “Nothing.” Again that pulse of need, intense and heady. Blast Off clung to the edge of the berth.

“Is that what you do to him? Is it? You have to stop.”

“Not… stop,” Vortex said. “Fine as I am.”

“Like frag you are,” Blast Off yelled. One of the little drones perked up, alerted by the sound, then settled again for lack of any actual command. “You _are_ glitched. You’ve always been glitched. You came out of the factory wrong and no one noticed!”

“ _Not_ glitched.” It was emphatic, but it lacked the rage that Blast Off had expected – that experience had taught him to prepare for. Could be the ‘copter was too weak. More likely he’d begun to think, the forced recharge enabling more complex cognition, making him dangerous again.

“Yes,” Blast Off said. “You are. Look at you.” He shoved Vortex hard, rocking him roughly on the pivot of his disassembled rotor array. “Don’t you ever think before acting? Don’t you wonder what effect this has on him, on the rest of us?” _On me_.

Silence. Vortex merely stared, a thin dribble of energon escaping the edge of his battle mask to drip down onto the berth.

Blast Off watched it, oddly fascinated. “Actually,” he said, after a while. “I bet you do. I bet you have all this mapped out before it even begins. Don’t you? You stupid, weak, manipulative-”

“Glitch?” Vortex whispered.

“Exactly,” Blast Off sniffed. “Well done.”


End file.
